Aramid fibers, including fibers of the "Kevlar" aramid polymer manufactured and sold by DuPont, are finding wide usage as a reinforcing material in gaskets, moldings, bulletproof vests, and other applications wherein they provide qualities of excellent tensile strength, light weight, and/or heat resistance. Although these fibers can be manufactured in continuous filament fiber form, for example by extrusion through spinerettes, for some purposes it is more convenient and less expensive for the supplier to ship such materials in the form of multiple fiber agglomerates or clumps, rather than as discrete fibers. The fiber agglomerates may for example be in the form known as "pulp," wherein many short fibers are closely matted as a spongy mass, somewhat like a cotton ball. In another common form, the product may be in the form of "fiber staple," which comprises clumps of longer, roughly parallel fibers. Other common examples of resilient fibrous materials sometimes supplied in fibrous agglomerate form include carbon fibers, Mylar fibers, nylon fibers, asbestos, and so on.
Where the user receives a fibrous material in the form of pulp, staple, or other multi-fiber agglomerate, it is often necessary that the material be separated into discrete fibers. The process of fiber separation is sometimes referred to as fiber "development," "expansion," or "exfoliation". This is required where individual fibers are to be coated or mixed with various bonding agents, for example, as where fibers are to be mixed with a matrix material for molding, or where the fibers are to be incorporated in friction linings or gaskets. It is to such fiber separation that this invention is directed.